Remote sensing opportunities and challenges for forestry in France
The stakeholder workshop of the European project H2020 “My Sustainable Forest”, which aims to promote sustainable forest management with innovative technologies and satellite-based remote sensing, took place on 20 and 21 November in the French city of Bordeaux.
The event was hosted by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine regional office of the Centre National de la Propriété Forestière (CNPF), who participates in the project, and included the participation of the other consortium members as GMV (coordinator), Föra Forest Technologies, Madera Plus, European Forest Institute, Foresna, RAIZ, Croatian Forest Research Institute, Forest Owners Association of Lithuania and the Mendel University in Brno. During the workshop, the objectives and the first results of the My Sustainable Forest project were presented to the French stakeholders, especially the first products of the commercial platform that will come out from the project in 2020.
This platform is intended for forest owners and forest managers and provides them with the necessary tools to obtain information from their forests (status and condition of properties, wood characteristics, tree volume and biomass, CO² stock, forest health and damages, forest fire risks, etc.) through the data collected by satellite and remote sensing technologies.
In addition to the project partners in charge of presenting My Sustainable Forest services’ portfolio (GMV, Föra, Madera Plus and EFI), other entities took part as speakers in the session to offer a broader perspective of the forestry context in France, the potential of remote sensing and the current opportunities and challenges.
The National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN) gave a talk on its work developing new reference databases, products and geoservices, to meet the
country’s growing and changing needs for map data and geographic information. During the session, the technical solutions implemented by the institution were highlighted, taking advantage of information from the National Forest Inventory (IFN) and the geographic databases it produces.
CNPF also presented the web portal “la Fôret Bouge“, a digital platform aimed at private forest owners where they can register their plots in a private account, obtain more information about their forests and know in detail all the regulations on it. It also serves as support to advise on forest management, sell their plots or determine the price of their own wood.
Moreover, the South West Foresters Union in France (SYSSO) presented the Quaspare study on the spatial qualification of the resources in maritime pine (Pinus Pinaster) in the area of Les Landes de Gascogne. The study quantifies the supply of mobilisable wood, municipality by municipality, in the immediate future but also in five, ten or twenty years. Quaspare and its maps were made available to have a clear vision of the volumes available on maritime pineand the investments to be considered for the future.
To conclude the workshop in France, the members of the project had the opportunity to visit the area of interest of Domaine des Agreaux that serves as a reference for the development of My Sustainable Forest products linked to riverine forests, young and mature tree stands and clear-cuts. During the visit, the forester expert Amélie Castro from CNPF introduced the group of forest particularities of the region, which shows the lowest tree species richness and a growing threat of nematode pests affecting maritime pine forests.
